ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: What happened to Kapp’s theory of social costs? A case of metatheoretical dispute and dissent in economics
Author: Neves Vitor
In the early 1970s the neoclassical environmental economist Wilfred Beckerman (1925) and the institutionalist K. William Kapp (1910-76) engaged in a severe dispute, which was published in the Social Science Information journal. The discussion was focused on social costs, but above all it raised issues on the very foundations of economics, namely problems of (social) efficiency, economic calculation and valuation and, more broadly, the character of economics. It is somewhat odd the relative lack of attention to Kapp’s theoretical contribution to economics, not only from (mainstream) economists but, more strangely, from historians of economics. Kapp was a leading European institutional economist and a distinguished contributor to the discussion on social costs. Some kind of market fundamentalist bias against Kapp’s radical critique of the system of business enterprise has been suggested to be the main reason for such neglect (Berger, 2012; 2013). Frank Knight’s criticism against Kapp’s reflections that they sounded like “socialistic critique and propaganda” seems to give some force to such a position. But, it is argued in this paper, an exclusive political ideologically based explanation of Kapp’s marginalization from the current conversation on social costs would be incomplete and partial. There are profound differences in nature between Kapp’s and the conventional approaches to social costs. Beckerman’s (1972) critique against Kapp and the latter’s rebuttal are crystal-clear on the insurmountable gulf distancing Kapp from the conventional approach. In addition to the obvious theoretical departures, the Beckerman-Kapp dispute exposed significant differences in “vision” and “modes of thought”, in the conceptions on the nature and scope of economic analysis and in how social costs are conceived and (theoretical and practically) dealt with. In a number of aspects, made explicit in this paper, it is discernible that those differences are so deep-rooted as to preclude any possibility of productive dialogue. Divergences locate at the (Lakatosian) hard-core level. They are, to use Backhouse’s (2004) expression and categorization, “beyond the pale” constituting “an extreme form of dissent”, i.e., a disagreement that does not become the subject of controversy but is simply ignored or dismissed. Kapp did not “think like an economist” (in the sense this expression usually assumes). He was an outsider to the discussion on social costs. It becomes then not difficult to understand the “conspiracy of silence” against Kapp. This is to be understood, above all, as shown in this paper, to his rather different conception of economics as a science. And this suggests a new, relevant issue to be considered: “where lie the boundaries of pluralism in economics?” (or, “what are the limits of dialogue?”).
Registred web users only can download this paper - Go back
Please note that files available for download have not been checked for viruses. These files have been submitted by authors of the conference to this web site. Conference organisers can't accept any responsibility for damages caused to users by downloading such files.